will a 150 gallon need a re-enforced floor?

[fooser]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Not really anything to do with your question, .. but have you considered making it 24" wide and 20" tall? The aquascaping possibilities are better with more depth and you can have the lights closer down.. And maybe the load spread will be a tiny little bit better?

This is exactly what I was thinking, Tony! Great minds think alike

[fragNplug]

I agree with what everyone else has said too, and also would like to point out your stand has alot to do with it, if you have a stand that is totally flat on the bottom, eg, a piece of plywood, the weight is distributed more equally across the full area, unlike a stand with just rails or independent legs.

here is a very long artical about floors and load distribution.
http://www.ashireporter.org/articles...es.aspx?id=570

[banditpowdercoat]

The plywood thing is only for the floor itself, not the joists. If you have "rails" on the bottom of your stand, they will spread the load out over the joists. Plywood really does not carry any load when laid flat. It's strength is on edge.

[fragNplug]

i was suggesting plywood as a base, to ensure he was not using just 4 or 6 legs on direct points to the floor.

[banditpowdercoat]

Originally Posted by fragNplug

i was suggesting plywood as a base, to ensure he was not using just 4 or 6 legs on direct points to the floor.

And I'm saying using plywood as a base will have no effect on joist loading. Only on Point pressure on the floor material itself. Acctually, If you had carpet, a plywood base would be a detriment, as it would bow in the middle and not be flat.

[kien]

Great information everyone, thanks! The house was built in 1991. No 'I' beams, just 2x6s running the length of the house but no longer than 12 or 13 feet to the nearest supporting beam as far as I can see from the furnace room. Hardwood floors on the main floor.

I thought about 24" deep by 20" tall, but not sure if that's suitable as a room divider in my space. The 90 gallon that is there now works perfectly at 18" deep and 24" tall. I have a 4" sand bed which has always worked well for me so the depth of the water is actually only 18"/20". So I figured I'd keep the same height, make it 2 feet longer and give myself a couple more inches to play with.

[targa81]

My 155 is on the second floor and I too was concerned about whether the floor needs reinforcing. From what I understand, 150 gallons is about where one starts getting concerned. I do know you are better off against a load bearing outside wall than as a room divider though. To be totally sure you'd best get an engineer to test the load capacity or just do as I did and fill it up. Any others with big tanks on the second floor??

[Pazil]

Originally Posted by kien

Great information everyone, thanks! The house was built in 1991. No 'I' beams, just 2x6s running the length of the house but no longer than 12 or 13 feet to the nearest supporting beam as far as I can see from the furnace room.

Are you sure that your floor joists are only 2x6? I would suspect that they are a minimum of 2x8's or 2x10's... If they are in fact 2x6's than I would "NOT" put the tank there without having an engineer coming by to have a look. The cost for an inspection will be much less than having the repair done.

[Coleus]

Ok, I am doing a little math to figure out I am not that good at Math btw) so let's see if this makes sense

According to this http://www.tpic.ca/3_specified_loads.pdf, our home floor live load is 1.9 Kpa which is around 40 pounds per square foot.

Your tank is 72x20 so roughly 12 sq ft in total.
Now calculate how many pounds of your tank:
a full water of 150 gallon is approx 1224 lbs
+ 280 lbs (sum) + 100 lbs (stand + equipment)
so that is around 1604 lbs

so 1604 lbs over 12 sqft is 133 lbs per sqft. So you are 83 lbs over per sqft

I am probably wrong here lol
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[Coleus]

good article to read btw http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article28.html
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